I already commented on how many countries were represented – that’s great!  Those who entered represented 8 countries, and the missionaries they talked about also represented 8 countries.

But let’s talk a little about some of the posts – this is especially for missionaries, who wonder what people like to hear about!

Out of the valid entries, the most popular blog was The Jungle Hut.  People especially liked the posts about living in the jungle in Venezuela, though the Vernoys are now in Paraguay.

The most popular post was actually The Kitchen.  Interesting choice, since it wasn’t a post about ministry specifically.  But people liked how it showed courage in the face of change – starting over and turning a negative into a positive.  More than one person enjoyed hearing about the resourcefulness and ingenuity that went into the work!

Let’s face it – it was also a recent post at the time of the contest!

For older posts, people also mentioned Thw Witch Doctor’s Chant [sic], an old post from the oldest daughter of the family, Jackie (who hopefully is still writing!).

Another popular blog was Copeland Ramblings, and their post From above!  Also a current one, but still excellent (I might have to copy that one!).

Probably the second most popular blog was paradoxuganda.  Always well written, one person commented,"I could (but won’t) go on for hours about the ways that God has used their blog in my life, to enlighten, challenge, and encourage me and my family."

Their most popular post was Adventure -vs- Quest, a post most missionaries can relate to.

Also, many people were impacted by various posts about Dr. Jonah Kule, who died during an Ebola epidemic.  From the day of his burial is Bundibugyo, Where the tears never run dry, and a year later Remembering Dr. Jonah Kule 1966-2007

More popular posts included Things Are Not As They Seem… from Comings Communiqué in Brazil, and Five Years Ago Today from The Jungle Hut (another post from the kids!).

Yes, blogs can be used in ways you never expect.  They can disciple, they can give people a glimpse into another culture, they can help you connect with people – and every once in a while they might even win you something.

Check out the comments in the original post for more interesting posts and blogs!

But sometimes that’s not enough – what if someone wants to really get to know you, so that they can pray for you, or support you?  What if they really want to get a feel for your ministry?  If they just flip through the last few posts, they may only see pictures from your last vacation/holiday, or a story about some random event.  No, you need something more – a sneeze page.

The term "sneeze page" was invented by Darren Rowse of Problogger.  Here’s how he describes it’s purpose:  A Sneeze Page is one that simply directs readers in multiple directions at once – back into your archives.

ACHOO.

So what is a sneeze page in practical terms?  It’s basically a page that indexes some of your best content from the past.  Examples?

• 10 best posts on Russian (or Thai or Peruvian…) Culture:  List the titles and maybe a summary of ten posts that show various aspects of the unique culture in the country where you live.
• Changed Lives:  What has God been doing?  List some posts that show growth in people that you interact with.
• Family Adventures:  Have unusual things happened to your family?  List the best posts.
• Chronological:  Top 10 posts from 2010, top 10 from 2009, or from your first term, second term, or something along those lines.
• Popular Posts:  Posts with the most comments, or most views, etc.
• What we do:  Are you involved in a few different ministries?  List some posts that highlight each one, or give people a good glimpse into what happens in each category.
• Devotional:  Thoughts and reflections on your blog over the yeears.

The possibilities are endless, as you can see.

Of course, you could also have multiple sneeze pages, then link them together.

Now, make your list, and again be sure to write a quick summary of the post – something that will draw your readers into each one.

A sneeze page has multiple benefits.  It helps people get to know you and your ministry.  It helps people sift through the posts and see the best of the best.  It even helps you remember things, and maybe see God’s grace over the years.

If you’re a missionary blogger with a sneeze page, leave a comment and show it to us!

Here’s what Darren Rowse has to say about Sneeze Pages.

Reading missionary blogs in Google Reader

Here are some common problems I notice that you might not be aware of:

• One of the most common problems is that people reading your posts via a news feed are probably reading your text on a white background.  And lately I’ve noticed some of you writing text in interesting colours – like yellow – which is almost impossible to read on a white background.  Be careful about the colours you use in the text of your post.  (Note – this doesn’t necessarily apply if you have a theme that colours all your text.  But do check out your own blog in a news reader to see how it looks.)
• Remember, when people rarely or never visit your site, they won’t see all the links and things you’ve put on your sidebar.  They won’t see your nifty background and special effects.  If there’s something you want them to be reminded of, link to it in the post.  (For example, if you want them to contact you, link to the contact page in the post itself.)
• Some blogs like WordPress have excellent plugins that can add a lot to your actual RSS feed – such as links to related posts, a link back to your blog, copyright information, and so on.  You can make good use of that feed.  One example is RSS footer.
• This may sound odd, but make sure your RSS feed has a proper title.  Some feeds have no name at all.  (I’m not talking about post titles – although those are important too!)
• Consider running your feed through feedburner – it will give you a lot of options, an easy-to-remember feed URL, and even stats on who’s using your feed and how.

Now that you’ve made your feed so much more feed-friendly, promote it!  Let people know they can subscribe, tell your church they can have your posts automatically appear on their site, and, of course, if you’re a missionary blogger tell me about it so that I can put you in our aggregator (on the main page here)!  (And in the main feed here: feeds.feedburner.com/Missionary-Blogs)

But it’s the beginning of a new year, and you might be wondering where to go with your blog in the months ahead.  Sure, you have a potentially huge audience, many people who might be interested in being a part of what God is doing in your part of the world.

Not sure what to do with your blog in 2010? Photo courtesy of Rennett Stowe

So how can you make the best use of this medium?  Well, I’m constantly wondering the same thing myself.  So I decided to invest in 31 Ways to Build A Better Blog by Australian Darren Rowse.

Darren hands out practical tips – most of which apply to just about any kind of blog.  A hobby blog.  A ministry blog.  A blog to earn you money.  A blog to inform family and friends.  Whatever you’re looking to do in 2010.

Of course, you don’t need to actually do something every day for 31 days (which missionary blogger out there has time to do that?  I see that hand!  Oh, you were just swatting at a fly?).  You can go at your own pace – but now you have a systematic, practical way to do it.

Every day you not only get a task, you’re also taught how to actually do it.

God has given you a tremendous platform to share about what you’re doing and more importantly what He’s doing.  Let’s make the most of it in 2010.  One great way to do it would be to invest in 31 Ways to Build A Better Blog.

Better yet, if you order in the next few days (until the 19th of January) Darren will give you some extra material.  One is an excellent workbook – 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year, which is a fantastic way to review your blog each year to see how to better fit it into your ministry.  There are also a couple of podcast interviews from other experts.

I know this will be helpful to many of you – do yourself a favour and at least check it out and rejuvenate your blog in this new year!

It’s real simple.  Tell a story in your post.

It’s surprising how little this is done, when it could be done.  So often people have a way of telling the cold hard facts rather than telling an interesting story.  Heroes, villians, challenges, drama – we live it everyday – let’s write about it!

I just read an incredible blog post that will give you ideas for your next story.  There are so many different angles, so many different stories that can be told.  The post is called 14 Types of Stories You Can Tell On Your Blog.  Here’s an except:

Yesterday we explored WHY stories can be such a powerful communication tool on your blog.

Today we’ll look at 14 types of stories that you might like to try on your blog.

14 Types of stories can you tell on your blog

1. Personal Discovery Stories – tell how you discovered a lesson. These stories show your readers how similar you are to them and also might give some practical advice on how they might learn from your experience.
2. Stories as Analogies and Illustrations – tell a story that on the surface has nothing to do with your topic but which illustrates a principle that is relevant.
3. Success Stories – tell how you achieved something. These stories can be inspirational and motivating for your readers.
4. Failure Stories – I find that these stories are incredibly powerful – particularly if you are able to show some lessons learnt through a failure.

Read the rest here.

Remember also, there are different ways to tell stories.  Use pictures.  Video.  Write a conversation.  A comic.  Draw pictures.  Audio.  Coloured text.  All these things can be done on your blog.

Go tell a story.  Tell us what kind of a story, and what you used to tell it, in a comment!

One of the best tools that people use to manage their feed is Google Feedburner.  Though far from perfect, it gives you a lot of tools to make your feed much more powerful.

In a nutshell, Feedburner takes your feed URL and runs it through their service, giving you a brand new URL that you choose,like feeds.feedburner.com/(yourblogtitle).  So what are the advantages of this?

• It gives you what can be a permanent feed.  Many people change blogs addresses or blog software over time.  You can have your new blog point to the same Feedburner feed, so your feed readers will still know where you are.
• Feedburner gives you great tools for promoting your blog and feed.  For example, email signatures, animated headlines for other sites, and buttons for your blog itself.  As I wrote in my original post on feeds, there’s incredible value to having people subscribe to your feed and have instant access to your prayer requests, etc.
• Feedburner gives you easy to read statistics for your feed.  Admittedly, many of us don’t have that many readers, so statistics may not be that interesting.  However, it still gives you an idea who’s interested in your feed and how they read it and what countries they come from.
• It gives you an easy to remember feed URL, one that you choose.  In fact, in some cases you can even create a URL on your own domain (not feeds.feedburner.com) that still runs through the Feedburner service.
• You can do various things to customize your feed.  For example, you can make it more accessible to a wide variety of feed readers.

There’s a reason why so many bloggers continue to use Feedburner.  Give it a try, and I think you’ll find it’s worth it!

However, there are some of you out there that actually enjoy blogging.  You may be a writer.  Maybe you like telling stories.  Maybe you share with photos, or podcast.  But you actually enjoy it, and you see the benefits.  You build relationships through your blog, and would like your blog to be even better.  This post is for you.

I do a lot of blogging and I enjoy it.  But there’s a lot to learn, and there are a lot of people who are much better at blog communication than me.

So I decided to actually take a course from someone I could learn from.  Now that I’ve had the experience, I decided I should tell you about it, because I know there are a few of you out there that would really benefit.

Blog Mastermind

The course is called Blog Mastermind.  It’s actually more than just a course, it’s a full mentoring package, with group phone calls where you can ask questions, mp3s to listen to, video to watch, and much more.

It’s taught by professional blogger Yaro Starak, from Australia.

Now, obviously the course is not taught with missionary bloggers in mind.  However, having gone through the course, a couple of things impressed me.

• First, Yaro takes an ethical high road that missionary bloggers will appreciate.  He’s not interested in popularity at all costs, or cheap tricks.  He is interested in building relationships and helping people, and missionary bloggers will appreciate that.
• Yaro’s course is built to appeal to a wide variety of bloggers.  Naturally, he’s targetting people who want to make money online as "professional" bloggers.  However, Blog Mastermind is about a lot more than making money.  If you’re not interested in money at all, but building partnerships and relationships, or sharing information and knowledge, this course is for you.

Making money? Not really why I’m here…

You won’t be surprised that, as Yaro has promoted his course, he’s mentioned the money making aspect quite a bit.  There are some of you who won’t be interested in that aspect at all, and that’s fine.  Blog Mastermind is not just about making money – in fact, most of what you learn will be valuable whether earning online is for you or not.

There are a few of you who might want to try a hobby site to earn some money online, or you might want to earn a little extra with the blog you already have.  Yes, this course will give you real, workable ideas that you can use on any blog.

Other advantages

Another thing I like about Yaro’s approach is that he aims to blog part time.  He’s not generally talking to someone who has the time to blog 12 hours a day.  That’s another reason I thought many missionary bloggers out there may find his particular approach useful.

Yaro has particular credibility.  He makes thousands every month blogging, and has networked with some of the top bloggers out there (many of them Christians, interestingly enough, as you’ll discover if you take the course).  So you’ll hear not only from Yaro, but from other great bloggers.  And if you want to take the time, you can actually meet some of them, and build some new friendships!

You need to know – this is a high level course… some of the best stuff out there of its kind.  This is not just some hacker teen making money from people trying to make money.  Yaro is a real professional, and this is very valuable stuff.

Another thing I appreciated about this course is that it’s in bite sized chunks.  You can pay on a monthly basis, for example (or pay all at once – it’s a 6 month course).  Every week, you have specific, measurable tasks to do.  Many very simple.  You can work at your own pace, but you’re never left wondering what you should do next.

That means you actually get something done!

This isn’t for you…

Once again, a brief warning.  If you blog once a year, and you’re ok with that, this is not for you.  No, you don’t have to be a passionate daily blogger to find this course useful.  But you do have to feel that blogging is a real part of your ministry.

When I set up Missionary-Blogs.com, I hoped to connect Christians with missionaries, in order to further the Gospel.  But I’ve also had the opportunity to encourage missionaries to better use technology.  I’m no expert, and so I want to take the opportunity to point you to someone who is a little further up the road in experience.

Frankly, many of us have incredible blogs … for the late 1990s.  But technology, and people’s expectations, are moving fast.  We could do so much better.

If only a few of us took only a few of the fantastic (sometimes very easy!) suggestions that Yaro has, it would create a presence on the internet that could really make a difference around the world!

Check it out!

Yes, you can try it out for 2 months and get your money back if you find it’s not your style.  (It’s an excellent program – it was my style, but may not be yours).  Check out all the details here.

Don’t have a blog?  Yaro promises you’ll have a blog up and running within two weeks of joining, or he’ll set it up himself.  Yes, this is for more experienced bloggers, and absolute beginners as well.

Questions?  Have you tried the course, and have a comment?  Leave a comment below.

About a year ago an operator of two Christian Radio Stations in western KS contacted us.  He found us on the site and we began communicating.  Every so often we would get an encouraging email or note letting us know he had been praying for us.

One of the people groups we work with are the Kekchi and they have a radio ministry that reaches many unreached villages all over Petén.  They needed some help repairing their equipment which we know nothing about.  They needed a part that we could not find the normal route through google.

We contacted Bill who spoke to his radio engineer who found the part within 24 hours.  A pastor in AR bought the part and it is in route to Guatemala to triple the coverage area of the Gospel in the indigenous tongue to people who don’t have any other chance to hear it.

Thank you so much for this site [Missionary-Blogs.com].  Just one small story of how God has used it to impact people we won’t meet until heaven.

Praise the Lord! Thanks to Shelley and Jim for sharing the story.

Here’s another post about connections made through blogging.

If you want more exposure for your blog, be sure to be a part of the current Missionary Blog Carnival!

Shopping for a cow in Kenya – get the story and video!  And speaking of big animals, take a look at a rodeo in Brazil.

Time for the cute-kid videos – check out “Papa“, fun with kids and technology, Noa and Martha perform, and for a little music try this birthday song for Mom.

The fun of language learning – I Can Barely Speak Spanish.

Try a little golf, and finally a way to travel in Haiti.

What actually tends to happen on a well-made blog is that people interested in what you’re doing, in what you’re talking about, those are the ones that eventually find you.

I often read blogs where people sound like they’re just talking to the six friends that they mentioned the blog to.  Those people are in for a surprise when strangers start arriving on the Google train, or the Yahoo! train, or from a church website, or, hey, even from here!

So how do you deal with this new found fame?

Barb (who is starting into her fourth year of blogging) had to think about this question again when someone showed up at a church service who actually knew her from her blog!  Her post, Celebrity Status!? is a must read.  Here’s an excerpt:

I suppose when complete strangers recognize your face from some public forum, that could constitute celebrity status.  It’s actually been pretty cool to have met several people, both online and in person, who know of me through my blog.  It’s a bit disarming, too… I always stop to think “what have I written and is it all stuff that I really want to share with complete strangers?”

Read the answer she comes up with here!